GinohnNews

Note: We forgot to add a whole week's news two weeks ago, so if you want to catch up, check out last fortnight's news.

G: I've finished up my photo journal for the Code Monkey Travels the World project. I've uploaded way too many photos, most with captions, here.

The rest of the albums (so far) by other people, and my subset for the group, can be found here.

We've been busy with stuff, parties mostly. On the 1st of August (my Dad's birthday) we attended First Friday at Frank and Susan's house and that was a great time. They've got a good party house. There was lots of food and drink and cake and two birthdays celebrated - both Steve and Jsun are 50!

The next day (Saturday) we went to DC for Paul's roommate Michael's birthday party. This is my old college friend Paul from the party from the last news. Again, nice place, food, drink, nice people, cake, birthday. John had fun talking about fitness and weight training with some of the guys.

Sunday I did the Artful Afternoon thing, hanging out in my studio - but spent the whole time cleaning and dusting because there was a lot of dust from the wall construction.

I had the last of my classes on Monday and Tuesday. No more until Sept 15th!

Then Wednesday Rich and Izolda took me to Rehoboth beach as a birthday present. When we got there we ate at Greenman Juice Bar and Bistro. Then we went and set up on the most crowded beach I'd ever seen. I guess the last few times I'd gone to the beach it was a bit more off season. There were beach umbrellas as far as the eye could see in both directions, and several layers deep from the shore. But it wasn't impossible to find a spot far enough back. We set up our umbrellas, and then I felt hot enough to try to go in the water. You'd think that in August the water would be a nice temperature, but it was icy icy freezing cold. I stood a long time just getting my feet wet and they never really got used to it. Izolda came down and she pretty much went right in. I had decided it was too cold to go in, but for some reason I very very slowly made my way in, screeching at each new section that had to get wet. I had a boogie board and that helped, and soon I was drifting around with Izolda. When my feet were in the water they felt icy cold, but if I pulled them out it was hot enough to warm them right away. But after about 20 minutes I decided I'd had enough, and that was all the time I spent in the water.

The rest of the time was spent lying on the beach, most of the time under the umbrella, but I caught a little sun after coming out of the water. Rich spent some time flying his kite. Had to get Thrasher's fries, of course. They were good. Then Izolda and I walked around shopping while Rich slept on the beach. I got a pretty dress. More walking around, browsing all the fun stores. Planet X is still there, but they are a shi shi foo foo place with entrees in the $30 range so we decided to go to the place with beer and sandwiches (they have veggie burgers and avocado, so you can't go too wrong). We had a lovely day!

On Friday we went to a party for Jsun's birthday. That was a fun party too.
And Saturday we went to Christian's 40th birthday party. The theme was Neverland. John wanted to dress up like Michael Jackson (at Grant's suggestion) but there was just no way to get a costume on one hour's notice. So he went in jammies. I put on my new dress from Rehoboth and tied a scarf at the back to be vestigial wings (being only a small part fairy). The pointy ears are a dominant gene, however.

Sunday there was a pool party at Dave and Diane's. That's where we got to see the Naabs - they are in town to see (brother) Eric who will be here from Japan on Friday. So we are looking forward to spending time with all of them. Anyway, I brought a huge salad that was much appreciated by some people. There was a moon bounce but I renamed it the poo bounce because that's what it smelled like inside.  I swam and talked to Joe, and hung out with Meg, and the kids pretty much ignored me, but that's okay. Thom was there with his kids too, and of course I saw many friends and acquaintances.

From there John and I stopped by dance night. I didn't have my dance shoes and danced barefoot and sustained some toenail damage. When I got home I discovered a cut on the bottom of my foot as well, but I don't know when I got that. The toenail has recovered but the bottom of the foot is still a bit sore...

I went out to look for meteors last night, but it was cloudy and probably not dark enough. I didn't see any.

In other news, Mango, our cat, is not feeling well. She is most likely having more trouble with her kidneys, although the vet wanted to rule out infection and has me giving her antibiotics. She goes back to the vet tomorrow and most likely I'll be giving her daily doses of fluids. I hope this perks her up so she looks well enough for Ginohn to take our vacation. I won't leave her if she's on her way out...

J: I sometimes have this quirky feeling that as my memories and consciousness ebb and flow, I might be performing a weird multidimensional random walk, slowly approaching a possibly non-existent barrier called "death". How primitive do my thoughts have to be, as I die, to allow my point of view to "transfer" (and maybe it is constantly transferring every moment as I write this) to other entities that are having the same exact thoughts?

Even if my memories have to retreat to those of an ant (in its own random walk!) or an amoeba, before what's left of "I" counts as exact copies in other places, and "I" experience (without noticing) a reincarnation of sorts; even that, coupled with the simple idea that all physically possible universes exist, points to the inescapable conclusion that I am you, and you are Buddha, and Buddha is my dog, etc.

There are, of course, deadly first-person experiments one could perform to find out (or not) whether higher complexities of memories and consciousness have copies to retreat to, but I choose to run a slower, perhaps safer, experiment. If, in a thousand years, I notice that I am still alive while most everyone else has come and gone, that will convince me that Everett's Worlds are true. I will live through trillions of heavens and hells— and so will you and you and you.

In such a tangle, getting beyond the multiverse is just unfathomable to me. But maybe. I'll certainly have a long enough time to develop an escape plan, if it's possible.

Have I talked about this already?